About the size of a dime, the 6 by 8 millimeters radioactive capsule lost in Australia by one of the world’s largest mining companies, Rio Tinto.
Company employees together with government authorities are scrambling to find it before it causes harm to anyone. “We realize that it is a very worrying situation and we regret the alarm caused,” says a spokesman for the giant.
The capsule, albeit very small, contains Cesium-137, a radioactive substance which can cause serious disturbances if touched. She got lost while being transported from Newman to Perth, a distance of 1400 kilometres.
It should have fallen in a desert area, one of the least populated in the country, but the possibility remains that someone could come into contact with it. Andrew Robertson, director of health for the region, told the BBC that touching it “may cause skin damage or an acute radiation reaction.”
“Exposure to the capsule – he explained – is equivalent to receiving 10 x-rays in an hour or the amount of natural radiation we receive in a year”.
The object, which was being transported from the Gudai-Darri mine, was lost on January 12, but the authorities only gave notice of it five days ago.
For the transfer, the company had relied on a company equipped with a Geiger counter, capable of measuring radiation, so as to be able to ensure that the capsule was inside the container used for the journey.
Several executives have resigned following the incident: the company was already trying to clean up its reputation after it inadvertently destroyed a rock sacred to Aboriginal people during some excavations.
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